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  • From: Peter Bekins <pbekins AT fuse.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Deuteronomy 21:23 Who is cursed?
  • Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:08:35 -0400

>> As Keil and Delitzsch interprets this...

Michael, I realize you were just writing a quick note, and I know I'm probably being a bit of a jerk, so don't take this personally, but its one of my pet peeves...

Keil and Delitzsch don't interpret anything. The commentary series is called "Keil and Delitzsch," but each individual volume has a single author and technically should be cited as either Keil or Delitzsch. They did not collaborate so each man's ideas belong solely to himself. I don't remember offhand who wrote the volumes on the Pentateuch, but I think it was Keil. Just a quick note for all of you b-Hebrew listers out there if you have to write an academic paper or journal article.

The clue to a construct relationship is the "rat" ending on the end of the QLL, as one of my old professors used to say. However, this also tells us that it is a feminine noun, which doesn't agree with ‏ תָּל֑וּי‎(TFLUY). I would guess that this may be why Keil (let's say it is Keil) suggests that the referent is the land since )DMH is the only feminine noun in proximity, though I may be guessing wrong since I don't have the commentary in front of me.

If the construct phrase is describing the "hanged guy" it must be using QLL in some generic sense, and not as an adjective modifying TFLUY, ie "because a hanged man is an accursed-type-thing in relation to God". This syntax is a bit difficult because the genitive relationship is quite broad (it doesn't specify what the relationship is to the head noun) and Biblical Hebrew (which, for Yitzhak, I am merely using in the sense of any Hebrew that might possibly be contained in the bible:)) does not mark the agent of a passive.

Interestingly, Targum Onkelos translates:

‏אֲרֵי עַל דְחָב קדם יוי אִצטְלִיב‎
)RY (L DXB QDM YHWH )C+LYB
"because on account of sin before the Lord he was hanged"

ie, the KY clause ends at elohim, and is not the reason why you shouldn't leave a guy on a tree, but why he was hanged in the first place (I remembered to write hanged instead of hung).

humbly,
Peter Bekins


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